WASHINGTON-Vroo-o-o-o-o-sh-h-h-h-h!!!!
Wow! What was it? A bird? A plane? A Patriot?
No, it was the Senate`s latest pay increase, hefty, speedy and hard to detect, until you start paying for it.
In the late-night hours last week, the Senate introduced a new concept in the world of executive compensation: the Stealth pay raise.
Like the radar-eluding fighters and bombers, the Stealth pay raise was designed to elude angry radio call-in shows.
Risking unfortunate comparisons to thieves in the night, the Senate bypassed such usual niceties as a public hearing before it moved to raise its pay by $23,200 and ban speakers` fees to match the $125,100 House members earlier voted themselves, also with a ban on the honoraria.
This time the senators pushed the legislation through committee, put it before the main body at 8:47 p.m., Eastern time, began to vote 45 minutes later and approved the raise, 53 to 45, at 9:50 p.m., when most of the day`s reporters had retired from the Senate press gallery.
As much as Congress is chastised for sloth, waffling and indecision, when it came to fattening their own paychecks, the senators moved with the lightning precision of Desert Storm. Of course, they had their reasons:
Reason No. 1: Our pride is wounded.
This one was well voiced by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va), who said, ”It is demeaning to the United States Senate to be a second-class body.”
Betcha didn`t know the Senate was part of the nation`s underclass, did you?
I guess part of the skill of being a good politician is to be able to tell working-class America with a straight face that you can`t get by on a measly $101,900 a year, even if it does sound sort of like Donald Trump bemoaning the fact that he`s not worth as much as David Rockefeller.
Reason No. 2: We`re worth it.
Byrd again: ”This . . . is the most important board of directors of any business in the world.”
Business? Board of directors? If so, how does the profit-and-loss statement look these days, Senator?
The answer: Pretty grim. Just before the Senate executed its latest larceny, the latest official budget deficit projections came out: A stunning $348 billion, largely for spending measures our underpaid Congress approved.
Unemployment has only gotten worse in the year and a half since the House approved its pay increase, and it continues to creep up, in spite of Bush administration declarations that the recession is over.
As for action on anything that either costs or would save money, Congress is in gridlock. Last October`s budget agreement, which seemed to make George Bush look silly for going back on his ”no new taxes” pledge, has instead backfired on the Democrats, much as just about everything seems to these days. Under the deal, any new spending on domestic programs must be paid either from other domestic programs or from still more new taxes. So, for the first time in memory, the Democrats are slouching through a recession without proposing a new jobs bill and the Republicans are rejoicing that Reagan-era federalism has put much of the federal government`s domestic burden back on the states and cities, some of which are cutting services to the poor, in feverish efforts to balance their own budgets while the senators were voting themselves new walking-around money.
Reason No. 3: We`re raising our pay for your own good.
Byrd yet again: ”How does it enhance good government to make service in the Senate a luxury which only the wealthy can afford?”
Good question. About a third of the senators already had been shamed into giving up their speakers` fees, which usually had no relationship to the quality of the oratory that was purchased, so this lets the rest off the hook. Ralph Nader roasted the senators to a golden brown for staging a ”pre-midnight raid on the taxpayers.”
”This time the voters will remember in November,” he said.
Maybe, but don`t count on it. Just as it has taken more than a recession and the enduring shenanigans of Saddam Hussein to shake President Bush`s popularity ratings, it will take more than a little ol` 23 percent pay raise to shake up the Senate.
Nader proposes term limitations and forced pay reductions, efforts that have captured the hearts of voters in Washington, Colorado and California but probably will not sweep the country. Nor should they. In a democracy, voters should have the right to re-elect any boob they choose, and in congressional races, they usually do.
The enemy is us. Surveys show Americans hate Congress but love their own local members of Congress. Like Hell`s Angels, members of Congress can be as pleasant to know as individuals as they are unpleasant to know in a group.
Will Rogers once said, ”If some efficiency expert would work out a scheme where each (member of Congress) would be paid according to his ability, we would save a lot of money.” I think he had the right idea. Maybe we`d also see some quick action on something besides pay raises.
